{"id":6471,"date":"2021-01-07T13:31:31","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T13:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/typa.ee\/?p=6471"},"modified":"2021-01-07T13:31:32","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T13:31:32","slug":"composing-and-printing-the-little-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/typa.ee\/en\/composing-and-printing-the-little-prince\/","title":{"rendered":"COMPOSING AND PRINTING THE LITTLE PRINCE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You must be curious to know how exactly we printed the book if we only used the techniques and machines from the 20th century or earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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COMPOSING AND PROOFING (AND COMPOSING AND PROOFING)<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After the layout and the design of the book had been confirmed, our printing technician J\u00f6rgen could start composing the text for the book. To do this, we used our line casting machine called The Linotype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Linotype, invented in 1880, was one of the most important machines in a 20th-century printshop. Before this invention, all the text for books or newspapers had to be composed by hand out of single pieces of metal type, letter by letter. Linotype made this job much faster: the machine operator simply types the text on a keyboard, the machine assembles matrices in a line and then casts this line from molten metal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be true, the machine that we used to cast the lines for the book was not a real Linotype but a Soviet copy of the same machine, called N-14. By now we also have a real Linotype in our collection. (Dont\u2019 worry \u2013 they both work just as well!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the left: Linotype, from 1920s.<\/em> On the right: Soviet copy of the Linotype, called N-14, from 1970s.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Freshly casted text lines aka slugs.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For our\u00a0The Little Prince<\/em>\u00a0book we had to use a few hundred kilograms of metal to cast several thousand of lines of text. You can see our printing technician, J\u00f6rgen, operating the line casting machine in this video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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